Over heating laptop

Right I have a Sony VAIO laptop (PCG-K315B) and it seems that once its been in use for around two hours or so it will become slow and unresponsive. Now unless theres a memory leak of some sort which i know happens with firefox i'm going to put it down to the fact that the processor is over heating.

The gush of air that comes out the side doesn't seem as powerful as it used to be and the speakers which are also an outlet for hot air are really hot not to mention the underside of the notebook is almost too hot to touch. I would try and clean out some of the dust from the inside myself but seeing as the computer shop down the road wont "because VAIOs are notoriously difficult to get into" i think it would be best for me to leave it alone.

My only choice is to get a notebook cooler, so have you guys got any advice as to which i should get, wether they make much of a difference and also how much noise do they generate?

Oh and btw I dont use firefox i use Opera and its running on ubuntu 5.10.

I had a client with the same issue. Apparently the Vaios are known to have overheating issues. I had a ton of links as a result of researching that instance, unfortunately they were purged during a hard drive replacement recently.

In the case of my client, it was simply a matter of cleaning the exhaust fins on the heatsink/cooler (a rather poor design in my opinion).

If memory serves, it wasn't very difficult to "get at". After that a can of compressed air, reassemble and everything was back to normal.

Hope this helps.



[edit on 5/18/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

The best way to fix this is 1. go on download.com an find a program that can control the speed of your fan.theres a program called speedfan that tells you a pretty accurate tempeture.
second thing is go to a store like best buy or curcuit city,or even like a office depot if you have one an by a can of air,it will be called like cleaning duster or sumthing spray that into your fan intake vent.
This is a sure way to fix it, my former roomate smoked an my laptop started heating up, i spray the air in there for about a second an a puff of dust an smoke came out the back vent.

comp stay around 100-110 degrees with out the fan on now,an when its on its spins mroe efficiently

an for refrence the stuff thats in the can is

Tetraflouroethane

To add...

As for the "computer shop" down the road, meh ... it took all of about 20mins from start to finish. Again, if memory serves, I first removed the "panel" over the speakers, which exposes the screws for removing the keyboard. Once the keyboard is removed you will have easy access to the heatsink/cooling "system".

Ground yourself, be patient and you shouldn't have a problem. Plus you'll save a few bucks, to boot.


Let us know how you make out!


[edit: shouldn't vs sholdn't] :shk: sausage fingers

[edit on 5/18/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

or get heatspreading ram

Thanks for the quick responces guys.

Yeh i've heard of the compressed air solution, i'll do a search for some more instructions. As for removing the panel over the speakers i have already tried that and it doesnt seem likes its going to go anywhere without something breaking. but i'll do a litle more research on that as well before my next attempt.

12m8keall2c is right as usual. I have a couple myself. It's not that difficult.

Here are the disassembly steps for one model of the Vaio, and here is another



Best of luck.

[edit on 5/18/06 by makeitso]

best bet is not to take apart anything

Try updating your BIOS... I don't know if it has anything to do with your issue but I had the same problem once and updating the BIOS was my friend's recommendation. It took care of the problem. That's all I know.

The most likely cause for the overheating, is poor ventilation.

Think of how little room there is inside of the laptop, for the air to ciculate, and be drawn in from outside of the unit.

I'm guessing that the fans and ventilation paths are covered with a good amount of dust and other gunk.



As for being slow and unresponsive, does it clear up after a reboot?

For the slowness, I would think that maybe one of the reasons is that your hard drive needs to be defragmented.

Have you done that recently?

There are also a multitude of other reasons for a computer to become slow.

Mechanic 32.

[edit on 5/23/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Yes even after a reboot it it will still be slow and take ages to load everthing.

The file system in linux (or ext3 the filesystem i'm using) is a lot more efficent than in windows and doesnt require defragmentation so i doubt thats the issue. The inside maybe covered in gunk and dust like you say and this is most likely the result of a design fault as many Vaios have this problem.

For the moment I have proped the back of the laptop on a couple of books and it works fine.
I havnt decided wether to go for a notebook cooler or sort out the inside, i'll probably have a go at the later.

I'll post some pics later this week and maybe we can figure out how to get into this thing without tearing it apart.

okay, linux. My fault, I was assuming Windows.

Keep us posted on whatever you decide to do...

Ok it's been a while but i've finally found time to sort it out. With the last week or so being ridiculously hot the Laptop had little more than an hour of usability in it. I ordered a notebook cooler but couldn't be bothered to wait. I took the gamble and opened up the laptop starting by removing the panel just in front of the screen which doubles as a speaker. I used some cotton swabs an O2 spray can and a hoover to remove any traces of dust. I can happily say that everything is working brilliantly. The notebook cooler hasn't arrived yet and i kind of wish i never ordered it but with a hot summer ahead it should come in handy. Thanks for the help guys.

Thanks for the tip Bman. I too am currently using a laptop, so this reference should come in handy. Glad to hear you got it all sorted out.

Thanks for the tip Bman. I too am currently using a laptop, so this reference should come in handy. Glad to hear you got it all sorted out.

No problem.

One very important tip is to make sure you ground yourself (by touching a radiator for example) and your equipment before you go any where near the internal components as you could cause irreparable damage. Secondly make sure you have a fair bit of time, because the last thing you want to do is to have to rush the process.

Good luck, it's well worth the effort.

bman,

Glad to hear everything worked out for you. Amazing what effect a bit of dust and dirt can have on a system. The overheating was probably the biggest contributor to your slow/unresponsiveness as well.

Had you not cleared those exhaust fins and such, you were most likely headed for hard drive and or system failure to boot.



[edit on 6/15/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

just for your reference i would nver use a vacuum cleaner to suck the dust, vacuums create static electricity if in any way your computer ESPECIALLY a viao took a shock it could fried the whole computer

^ well i guess i was lucky then, thanks for the info.

However as the nozzle was made of plastic i wouldnt have thought it would be a problem, i just stuck it over the fan and it did a great job.